


The Edge of Everything

by cenobitesquid, InsufferableArchanist



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Complete, M/M, Oneshot, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24600769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenobitesquid/pseuds/cenobitesquid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsufferableArchanist/pseuds/InsufferableArchanist
Summary: Sephiroth and Cloud meet in the star filled void, at the end of Destiny.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 15
Kudos: 149





	The Edge of Everything

To say that Sephiroth arrived before Cloud was inaccurate. 

Nevertheless, he conscious of inhabiting the space before Cloud was; he was aware of Cloud's seeming descent from the heavens, as if the void itself had condensed into so much stardust and shot him out. The glory of it was somewhat lost on Sephiroth, who could only think, at that moment, that it looked like the sky was ejaculating the blond to him. It was a somewhat distasteful comparison, the lingering dregs of some long-past life echoing in the chambers of his head, but his expression could not falter from the cold bliss on it as he watched Cloud become aware. 

As he fell forward towards the ground, Sephiroth caught him by the wrist, holding it firmly between the prophylactics of their leather gloves. He looked on Cloud's face as his gaze flew up, surprised, though he really had no reason to be. Everything up to this point was predetermined, after all; a reaction of the universe with no forethought or meaning, a convulsion of coincidence.

"Careful now," he said, "That which lies ahead... Does not yet exist."

The feeling returned to his limbs first, tingling and strange, and through a black veil of darkness, blurred pinpricks of light met the first fluttering blink of his lashes. Stars, he thought. Where was he? He'd been fighting, and then there was a blinding light, a sensation of falling, and now, a strong grip on his wrist. 

He felt as if he knew that grip, that it belonged to a good friend whose face he couldn't quite remember. His vision focused at last, and he looked up, only to reflexively jerk his wrist away, his blood suddenly ice in his veins, his heart pumping too loud, his head ringing with an unpleasant static.

"Sephiroth," he said, steeling his voice, trying to hide his animal fear of the apparition with his hatred.

"Cloud," he replied, blinking a split second later. There was a vague hint of surprise about it, as if he had just gone off script for a moment. As if their entire world had. His expression settled a little, thinking of that, fascinated. "So this is what it's like."

He took a half-step back, angling his stance and squaring up, reaching one hand behind him to grip white-knuckled at the hilt of his sword. "...What do you mean?" He asked, wary.

"Changing destiny," Sephiroth said, feeling a shiver try to threaten his shoulders with excitement. "Rescinding fate."

He wanted to hold his ground, but the hammering of his heart had him moving, pure instinct, one step back, away from the man he was facing. "Bullshit." He said, teeth grit to keep them from chattering. He saw him so clearly now, in this strange place, it was so real that he almost missed the painful static of earlier visions. "You're not even real. You're dead."

"Am I?" he asked again. He stepped towards Cloud, eyes still locked onto him. When Cloud only inched back, he waited a moment, then slowly held out his hand. "Come and touch falsehood, then."

Cloud's arm tensed, and in the next moment he drew his sword from his back, carving it through the air in a graceful arc that defied its substantial bulk, holding it two-handed. He hoped it looked threatening, but at the back of his mind he knew it was fear that made him draw, that made him crave the meager security of the weapon held up between them. "What do you want?" He asked, sharp.

"Only you. Your strength. Your hatred," he said, calmly touching his fingers to the tip of Cloud's blade. Then, he ran them along the top of it, as if curious, exploratory touches were the logical conclusion of what was called for. His eyes flicked back to Cloud's face. "Your love. Your terror, and peace. You."

His hands tightened on the blade until his joints ached, but he couldn't stop the tremor that ran through his arms, through his gloved hands, through the length of metal, trembling under the slide of those fingers. Suddenly Cloud could feel them on his body, running just like that down his torso, curling into his hair. His throat closed up, and though tried to swallow it down, he couldn't trust himself to speak.

"You don't realize what we've already done together, Cloud. Is this what you want? All you want? To plunge a blade into me once more?" 

He could practically taste the cold sweat gathering on the back of Cloud's neck. His fingers left off of Cloud's sword, returning to his own; he saw Cloud tense again, as if he could wind up any tighter and not begin to rend himself. To his surprise, Sephiroth took ahold of his own sword, sheath and all, and held it out on his open palm.

"Here. If you wish only to repeat the past. Run me through with the Masamune. Be done with it."

He hesitated. Somehow he knew it wasn't a trick. He knew, from the look in Sephiroth's eyes, that he would let him lay hands on Masamune again, let him run it through his body. He knew, too, that it wouldn't matter. It hadn't killed him before, had it? Here he was, defying logic. Slowly, his buster sword lowered, until its point touched the black mirror of the ground beneath their feet. Then with an abrupt but practiced movement, he lifted and holstered it on his back.

"...No." He said, his emotions a dark swirl in his head, in his heart, anguish and hate and something like worship, too, despite everything.

Sephiroth's hand curled back around his blade as he lowered it, taking a step towards Cloud once more. A flush of adrenaline and satisfaction rushed through him as Cloud didn't back away, staying perfectly still, though he seemed no less tense.

"You want something greater. You deserve something greater: me."

As he took another step, there seemed something like a true passion in his voice; the kind that sounded so familiar that it was alien to think it had ever been cold. Yet it remained chilling, full of too much gravitas to be truly warm.

"Here we are, at the edge of the universe; at the edge of everything that was. You and I, together; we are what will be, Cloud."

It was impossible to tear his eyes from the man as he advanced, but Cloud's vision unfocused a little to take in the cosmos swirling around them, millions of stars coloring the unknowable vastness of the universe, of a thousand universes. Questions clamored in his head, then faded as he tried to grasp at them until they crumbled like ash, inconsequential in the grip of his mind. When he finally spoke his voice had lost its hard edge, he seemed lost, adrift. "...Why me?"

How small he sounded, then, Sephiroth thought, taking another step. How small he was, in comparison, all his injected strength nothing compared to Sephiroth's bred capabilities. 

Still, he found himself somewhat surprised when the tips of one hand met the skin of Cloud's cheek; the distance that seemed once insurmountable closed, their reflections conjoined and glassy on the ground below them.

"Perhaps because it has always been you. As it has always been me," Sephiroth murmured.

"That's not true." He said, feeling strangely petulant, bitter. "You left. We were in it together, and you left. You burned Niebelhiem. Was it you and me then?"

"Was it you and me in the fields of war, when bodies were piled high and stinking of rot? Or you and me in those lonely hours of childhood that taught me only to be a weapon of use, and nothing more?" he asked back, tilting his head a fraction. The seam of his thumb touched the edge of Cloud's mouth. "Do we always have to know of fate for it to be so?"

A shock ran through him at the mention of Sephiroth's childhood. He realized he'd never thought of it before, never imagined the famous Soldier as a child. And war...the war in Wutai...hadn't he been there, fighting alongside him? The memories seemed so vague. His brows pinched to a little concentrated frown, even as he unconsciously turned ever so slightly into the brush of Sephiroth's leather gloved digit against his mouth, heat flooding into his veins to replace the ice, a flush creeping suddenly up his neck.

He should swat his hand away, he should shove him back, a logical part of his mind said. Instead he just stood there, letting himself be touched. 

"...No, I guess not. Have you seen the future, then? What happens?"

"You know... It's been new since you got here," Sephiroth told him. His fingers spread back, easily stretching out below Cloud's pierced ear, onto his throat. "I told you... We're at the end of what was. Everything now is ours to make. A hundred, thousand universes. A hundred, thousand lives. We could have all of them. More."

His breath caught as surely as if Sephiroth's hand had clamped down with all it's impressive strength over his airway. The caress had an equal power, an equal and dizzying effect on Cloud. "It's...a lot to think about."

Sephiroth let out a quiet chuckle.

"Aren't you tired of thinking?"

Cloud felt himself unsteady on his feet, rocking back onto the heels of his boots then overcompensating onto the balls of his feet, reaching out to grasp both fists into the smooth leather of Sephiroth's coat. There, alone in the star-filled void, under the bright piercing green stare of Sephiroth's gaze, he uttered the truth. "...Yes."

"Then just be. That's all I'm asking," Sephiroth told him. Stars reflected in his glossy eyes like flowers in verdant fields, growing evermore similar as their faces came close. His lips brushed Cloud's, a feeling that ran through his entire body, satiating some deep rooted need he had only barely realized he had.

The breath that had been stolen returned in a gasp, a little noise escaping through the press of their lips as his fists curled tighter, trembled in their grasp on Sephiroth's coat, then slowly let go. Just be. The words had their intended effect. First his fingers unclenched, then the tension bled from his arms, shoulders, his spine, and he melted into the kiss, tipping his head up into it, letting himself yield.

Sephiroth's breath spread over his lips, slid between them, insidious and tempting as anything, a metallic tang in the back of Cloud's throat. With his other hand, Sephiroth took Cloud's, lifting his fingers to where he'd run his sword through his body. There was no mark there now, merely the echo of what should be there; the direct defiance of what wasn't. 

His other hand seemed busy curling digit by digit into Cloud's hair, not caring whether he crushed out the fashion of it. How could he, when Cloud opened his mouth for him, when the swell of their tongues met, when Cloud tasted of impossibly sweet smoke and stratosphere?

He couldn't even spare the extra effort in his mind to be embarassed by the sound he made, again, at the silky slide of Sephiroth's tongue into his mouth. He was wholly riveted to the feeling of it, to the sensation of Sephiroth's smooth skin beneath his gloved touch, of his hand curling into his hair. He was on fire with desire for him, he was sick with it, burning up with a fever to be touched more, to be pushed down, claimed, hollowed out and filled with anything and everything he could fit of the other man inside of himself.

Silken strands of silver draped over Cloud's head, a veil between him and Sephiroth and the stars, and Sephiroth barely pulled back from his mouth, gripping his face. 

"Will you give yourself to me?" he asked, almost idle, if it were not for the intensity behind it.

"Yes," he said, breathless still, staring up at him. He understood the question, and he understood too, that there was only one answer. Once that first barrier had fallen, the rest had toppled like dominoes. "I'm...already yours."

That sent another thrill through Sephiroth, and he kissed Cloud again. His fingers came down to hold his chin, then up, slowly sliding into his mouth, gripping it, exploring as Sephiroth removed his own tongue, the taste of the leather still fresh, somehow. He slid his fingers up and down Cloud's tongue, his soft and hard palette, his teeth, as much petting his mouth as fucking it.

"Mmnh.." He groaned around the fingers probing and petting his mouth, lapping at the smooth leather with his tongue, sucking at the digits, one of his hands finally shifting, grasping into one of the belts around Sephiroth's waist, trying to pull him a little closer, wanting to be pressed up against him, to relieve some of the burning ache in him, in his whole body really, but centered in a unbearable throb of desire between his legs, his swollen cock already begging for attention.

"Desperation suits you," Sephiroth murmured, his lips brushing one of Cloud's ears, voice a low, vibrating hum inside of it. He could sense the prickles of gooseflesh it sent down Cloud's neck and shoulder, even beneath his armor, beneath his clothes. Instead of relieving his hips, he pressed their chests a little closer, the straps of his own ensemble rubbing the raised buds of Cloud's nipples through his sweater.

This caused another little gasp, and a whine as he rolled his shoulders back to push his chest out, chasing the pleasurable, if embarrassing, sensation against his sensitive nipples, his back curving to a neat arch as he shivered.

The thumb and forefinger of Sephiroth's hand pinched Cloud's tongue, gradually drawing it out, while he flexed his middle finger deeper inside of his mouth. He didn't just want Cloud aroused, he wanted him mindless, wanted to empty out every part of him that didn't need Sephiroth to fulfill it.

Cloud made a little noise of surprise as the finger slid deeper, against the back of his throat, making him choke a little, heat flooding his face. Amateur, his mind chastised him. He wanted to be better than that for Sephiroth, wanted to be perfect. When Sephiroth's finger stroked against the back of his throat again, he was relaxed, ready for him, a perfect receptacle, eager to please.

Eventually, that seemed to convince Sephiroth to let go of his hair, trusting him to keep his head still, relaxed, exactly where it had been left as his throat and mouth were used. Every hitch of breath seemed the promise of a million pleasures and pains as Sephiroth cut off his supply of air occasionally. 

Not that he didn't keep his other hand plenty interesting for Cloud, too, stroking his body very intently, until he could grip and pop loose one belt, then the other, at last pulling his zipper until his pants were loose enough to fit his hand into. It was only then that he removed the hand that had been in Cloud's mouth, enjoying the trail of saliva that attached the two entities before he slid the fingers down Cloud's pants, wasting no time in rubbing them against his hole.

The noise he made at that was pure desperation, a little wordless plea as he shivered, rubbing himself against the slick probe of Sephiroth's finger, tipping his head forward until his forehead rested against the hard plate of Sephiroth's armor. "...Please..." he managed, too far gone in the fever of his need to even feel humiliation as he begged him.

At last, Sephiroth slipped his middle finger inside of him. Even through the thick leather of his glove, he could feel the heat of Cloud's body, the way he tightened around him before he spread his legs a little further. Soon, Sephiroth had the middle of his hand tucked neatly into Cloud's body, making no effort whatsoever to compress his long digits, nor even a particular effort to move them out of where they were. He was much more interested in feeling around inside of Cloud, just as literally as he'd been doing metaphorically for so long.

"Better than a dream, isn't it?" he chuckled. "I have to guess so, since your filthy thoughts led us there so many times."

"Us?" He gasped out, a question and a response all in one. "You saw my dreams?" He asked, with a rush of shame and anger and arousal, the shock of the revelation stirring him slightly from the near-trance he'd been in a moment ago, drawing back to look up at Sephiroth, both hands braced against his belt for balance.

He was met only with that passing amusement, though it seemed, at least, slightly less patronizing than before. Perhaps because Sephiroth felt more connect to Cloud like this - one hand inside of him, one hand slowly creeping up under the thick knit of his shirt. 

"You called me there. Am I supposed to apologize for coming?"

"I didn't--" he began, but then that resistance broke yet again against the stroke of Sephiroth's smooth leather-clad fingers against the bare skin of his torso. Maybe he had, he admitted. He hadn't known such a thing was possible, but hadn't he longed for it? Hadn't he pulsed with desire and hatred as he turned restlessly in his bed? Didn't thoughts of him creep in as he worked his aching prick in the middle of the night, startled from such a dream? He swallowed, feeling the traitorous truth of it.

"Why be ashamed? Has there ever been anyone else who deserved you?" Sephiroth continued. His fingers rocked a little ways back out of Cloud, then forward, with enough pressure to send him swaying against Sephiroth's body again. The feeling of his aroused cock against his thigh was endearing in a trapped, helpless way. His lashes lowered along with his voice. "Has there ever been anyone else you deserved?"

"No...no." He admitted, his own lashes sliding closed as he drew a shaking breath in, feeling as if he might come apart at the seams.

It was nearly more of a punishment not to taunt him for that. Instead, Sephiroth kissed him again, his hand stroking Cloud's chest, catching one of his nipples between two fingers as he rocked into him again with his other hand. It was all relentless, breaking him back down into a stupor so easily that it seemed the lesson itself was that he could.

"Nnhh.." he groaned, muffled into this kiss as he felt Sephiroth's fingers pinch around his nipple, his mouth eager and pliant as he pressed into the kiss. A red hot spike of desire went straight to his cock as he squeezed and twisted at it, and he rubbed his leaking cock shamelessly against Sephiroth's thigh, pushing back into the fingers that were moving inside of him.

There was knowing what Cloud wanted and there was giving it to him, and Sephiroth held him on the fine, impossibly sharp edge of the two possibilities. He barely moved his own thigh a fraction between Cloud's, giving the barest bit of friction as the blunt pressure against his prostate built. His fingernails were surprisingly sharp through his gloves, the pinching at Cloud's nipple merciless. Yet as soon as it was too much, it would wane, letting Cloud get back just enough breath to be worked back into a frenzy of sensation.

It wasn't the sharp, precise grip on his nipple, or the way those long digits curled and rubbed against his prostate that was driving him slowly out of his mind with pleasure. It was the man doing those things, squeezing his heart in his grip more surely than anything else in his grasp. It was impossible that finally, after all this time, he would be here, touching him like this, wanting him the way that he'd always dreamed, and yet he was. Even after his betrayal. Even after his death.

Here at the edge of everything. The words drifted through his mind, terrifying and thrilling.

The feeling in his arm spread upwards, far less like pain this time than a tingling numbness, something stroking the nerve endings that ran along one side of his throat and face. It made his other nipple prickle, too, even more sensitive to the texture of his own shirt, the way it was being pulled on him as Sephiroth worked him. Silver hair brushed the other side of his face as they leaned in together fully, their bodies as close as possible, no air or heat taken or given that wasn't an exchange with the other.

"....Sephiroth..." he finally said, somewhere between a plea and a prayer, stifling a whimper with his next breath, trying to find the words to tell him. "I--" but it was too late, and the stars that hung all around them burst behind his eyelids as the incredible tension of his pleasure released. It made him bold, and he reached up for him, his hands catching at the back his neck and into one of the straps across his chest, pulling himself up to kiss his mouth, still wrapped in a fervor.

There was the curl of a smile on Sephiroth's lips when they kissed again, something deeply satisfying about holding Cloud in his grasp like this, so pitiful and beautiful and shaking. He held him as he rutted against the leather on his thigh like something feral, a monster with only instinct; the thing they both were, deep down. 

His arms thought to draw around Cloud to hold him only when Cloud's body thought to falter, to slump against him, as if overcome. In a moment, he had his buster sword unstrapped from his back, and thrust it into the ground, standing upright. In another, the Masamune stood beside it, the ground as yielding as he imagined it to be. Sephiroth sat, at last, with Cloud in his arms, contemplating the swirling nebulae in the distance.

It took him awhile to recover his faculties, and even then he was dazed, as if it was hard to believe he wasn't dreaming, even with Sephiroth's solid form beneath him, with his arms wrapped around him, supporting him. He looked over one broad armored shoulders at the stars.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that, but finally, his mind began to fix on the concrete once again, to try to discern the reality he was facing. "Where are we, really? The edge of the universe.... what does that mean?"

"It means what it means. There was what was before... What meant to control us. Together... We can shape everything to come."

"Together..." a little perplexed frown formed between his brows. "I wasn't really thinking much about the future, until just recently. Now, the furthest I've gotten is that ShinRa needs to be stopped. They dropped that plate...thousands of people died."

"Sometimes," Sephiroth said, seemingly unaware of the cryptic nature of his own statement to ears other than his own.

"Sometimes? What do you mean?"

"There are times where that happens, and times where it does not. Just because you can only remember which one happened to you doesn't mean it's the only eventuality which exists."

The little frown between his brows pinched a little more, but after a moment, he nodded. "Different timelines. The outcome of different choices. If we'd gotten there in time, we could have prevented it. So in some reality, we did."

"Maybe. Perhaps the decision was made not to assail the citizens. Perhaps the Shinra operatives tasked had an errant blemish of humanity," Sephiroth told him. "In any case, what has happened has happened. It's one possibility of many, but... Such a limited potential compared to what lies ahead."

"...Yeah." He paused, taking this in. "What do you want? For the future."

It took several moments for Sephiroth to answer this.

"Anything," he said. "Everything. I was bred to want nothing but bloodshed and violence. War. I used to think that was normal - to think only of that. To want only that. I didn't know to want more. Yet I can't regret that I do, now."

Cloud leaned forward, until his head was resting against one of Sephiroth's shoulders, breathing in the scent of him, feeling strands of his hair brush like fine silk over his face. "I never thought about it, before now. How you grew up, I mean."

"You saw the end result. I imagine that was informative enough, for your purposes."

"I idolized you. I thought that there could be nothing better than making Soldier First Class, I thought it would give my life meaning, that I would be somebody. I was pretty naieve. We were all expendable in the end, and for what?"

"Petty ends through monstrous means. The Shinra way," Sephiroth sighed. After a moment of consideration, he put a hand in Cloud's hair, not stroking or petting it. At least, not at first. The idea of familiar contact seemed new to him. "I suppose the human way. In any case... First Class... Meant something different, by the time you came through. Though not even I would have known it."

"What did it mean?" The hand in his hair was distracting, made him want to do nothing but sit there, basking in the touch. Instead, he forced himself to stay focused, this was important, too.

"By then, it was a cult of celebrity. Shinra's campaign to make war heroes out of their victorious experiments. But... First, there was just me. And then, two others. It stayed that way for some time. I can't say I didn't have... Lingering doubts about why. By the time I even started to know, there was Zack Fair, who... Was never intended to be one of us."

A little noise of pain slipped from between Cloud's lips, and suddenly his hands were clutched into Sephiroth's coat, his breath stuttering uneven, his head roaring with white noise. What had he said? A cult of celebrity. Two others, Genesis and Angeal, of course, everyone knew that. "Sorry," he muttered, frowning again, confused as to why he'd suddenly lost his shit.

"It's alright. Your mind was made to yield... I imagine the pangs of differentials must be quite painful for you."

"What do you mean? I thought it was you... messing with my thoughts." He admitted, and strangely there was no note of accusation in it, anymore.

"Sometimes," Sephiroth admitted. "But those are seamless. Painless. I am already within you. We have been linked from the moment of your birth, Cloud."

"Since I was born?" He swallowed, pulling back to stare at Sephiroth. "What do you mean? I was nobody, before I signed up for the army.. just some kid from Niebelhiem."

The gaze that met him was even, almost sedate, Sephiroth's hand slipping from Cloud's hair to the nape of his neck, just barely breaching his sweater.

"You were cultivated, as I was cultivated. Fifteen years apart, in different manners. I, to be Hojo's crazed experiment, a demonstration of what could truly be achieved for a select few. You, to be a beautiful, impressionable, durable puppet, sensitive to my orders - a crazed experiment for the bodies needed to sustain a standing army."

He felt his heart pound harder in his chest, making him dizzy, as this new betrayal sank in. Was that why--? All this time, was that why he had loved Sephiroth? Something coded in his DNA, some inevitability planned by ShinRa that drew him? That made him feel such a meaningful connection, though they'd never met?

"No..." he said, voice cracking, as he felt his eyes sting, as he tried to push away from Sephiroth, only to be held fast.

"It's the truth. There are so many eventualities, and yet... We share those truths. Why mourn for them now?"

He held Cloud as he tried to struggle even still, as tears welled in his eyes, and even fell, as his expression turned from despair to betrayal to anger to despair again. Through it all, Sephiroth held him, looking at him until he stopped fighting. 

"We were made as we are. We have been groomed into so many choices by the threads of fate around us, constricting us. I used to think there was nothing beyond that. Someone told me I was wrong, and I began to doubt. I met you... And I knew."

Just as before, it was like a dam breaking inside of him and his resistance crumpled into acceptance. With it, the tears he'd been fighting back spilled over his cheeks, and he finally stopped struggling, letting Sephiroth's grip hold him up. He was right, he was right again. And everything else he'd done paled in comparison, all those deaths, Cloud finally understood. He understood what Sephiroth meant earlier, that it had always been the two of them. 

For the first time, he truly understood the depth of betrayal that would make a person want to destroy every living thing on the planet, to end it all. And he forgave him.


End file.
